Among silver halide photographic light-sensitive materials, a color photographic light-sensitive material, particularly a color reversal light-sensitive material which is often used by professional cameraman is in many cases used as an original for printing. As the digital technique proceeds in recent years, various image processing techniques have come to be easily available and relatively cheap printed matters obtained by greatly enlarging a trimmed original are increasing.
Under such circumstances, the color light-sensitive material in recent years is being continuously required to have still more higher image quality, particularly excellent sharpness.
In the field of light-sensitive materials using silver halide, it is known that the silver halide grain itself has light scattering characteristics and largely affects on the sharpness. A silver halide grain having a equivalent-sphere diameter of from 0.2 to 0.6 .mu.m particularly causes large scattering of visible light. For the purpose of improving this scattering, a so-called tabular emulsion having a grain size larger than the grain thickness is used. The production method of a tabular grain and the technique of using the grain are disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,386,156, 4,504,570, 4,478,929, 4,414,304, 4,411,986, 4,400,463, 4,414,306, 4,439,520, 4,433,048, 4,434,226, 4,413,053, 4,490,458 and 4,399,215.
On the other hand, as a means for improving the sharpness from the silver halide emulsion side, a technique using development effects (interlayer effect and intralayer effect) is presented. Examples of this technique include a method of using a fogged emulsion in a light-sensitive emulsion layer disclosed in JAP-A-51-128528 (the term "JAP-A" as used herein means an "unexamined published Japanese patent application"), a method of specifying (reducing) the emulsion layer structure and the iodide content in the emulsion to enhance the development effects disclosed in JAP-A-59-64843, and a method of using tabular grains and specifying the iodide content to enhance the development effects disclosed in JAP-A-62-18552.
These methods are certainly effective in increasing the development effects and improving the sharpness, which, however, imposes a serious restriction on the common technique of tabular grains where a high silver iodide layer is localized inside the grain to generate a dislocation line to thereby increase sensitivity or improve pressure property, as disclosed in JAP-A-63-220238.
Under these circumstances, development of a technique for increasing the sensitivity, enhancing the development effects and improving the sharpness using a tabular grain reduced in the light scattering-has been demanded.